Military Culture: Elephant in the Living Room
I was invited to speak at the June 14 No Kings rally at the Burlington Waterfront. Given my military background, the 50501 organizing group wanted me to speak on military matters, which I did. Unlike most of the other speakers at the rally, I did not focus on Trump.
That’s because the Trump administration’s approach to military spending is basically the same as past administrations, both Republican and Democratic. But there is a significant difference in how Trump is using the military. He seems to be using the military as his personal gun squad to retaliate against his opponents. The Defense Department, on paper, exists to defend our country and uphold our Constitution. Ordering the National Guard and active-duty forces to deploy to Los Angeles is frightening and dangerous. It demands immediate action from Congress.
However, in my No King’s rally speech, I decided to speak about something that rarely, if ever, gets discussed by our elected officials or the media — both mainstream and social. The “elephant in the living room” topic is our military-driven society.
Even though this administration’s actions are reprehensible, Trump and his lackeys aren’t responsible for our environmental problems or our massive economic inequalities. These were created in large part by the military-industrial-congressional complex — words that while in the military, I didn’t think I’d ever utter.
I had a glimmer of hope that this administration might curtail some defense spending since they talked about doing that. But rather than cut military spending, they increased the defense budget by 13 percent to well over $1 trillion dollars annually.
That trillion dollars is much better spent on food, shelter, health care, and education. But not only does defense spending take away money for human needs, the resulting militarization of foreign policy and perpetual wars have a horrendous impact on military people, especially those in combat related jobs.
Just because we don’t see body bags on TV doesn’t mean that military people are not being injured. War damages brains and crushes souls, leading to an epidemic of suicides, traumatic stress and homelessness. And, tragically, the family and friends of the veterans suffer as well.
Early in my career, activists protested the Vietnam war and the military, and they spit on us. That helped to end the war — the protests, not the spit.
But wars and weapons make defense contractors sinful amounts of money. To them, weapons matter, but people do not. The defense complex treats military members as disposable, and the cost of doing business. So, to forestall future protests, and to gain public support for continuous wars, the defense complex created a campaign that I’ve named the “sanctification of the military.” And it’s been successful.
But it goes deeper than that. The public is encouraged to be proud of our weapons, and revere those who use them. It’s become sacrilegious to question military members or their weapons, much less oppose them.
Based on what I witnessed while in the military and during my work in Vermont opposing the basing of the F-35, I’m convinced our elected officials, including those in Vermont, have accepted this “saintly re-branding.” I also think most of them are scared of or intimidated by the military, and therefore they comply with whatever the military wants.
What President Dwight Eisenhower, a retired Army general, warned us of in 1961 has come to pass. He saw the growing influence of military industries on the government and society. He warned that this influence could lead to a dangerous imbalance, excessive military spending, and undue political influence. Eisenhower said that this had the potential to override national interests and compromise democratic values. Part of his historic warning reads “…we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and must be prevented.”
Dwight was right.
Now, much of our tax money goes to buying weapons, not to satisfying human needs. In recent decades, the glorification of the military and elections of a political class that does the bidding of the military-industrial complex has led to excessive defense spending and perpetual wars. This is hurting our country with military members suffering the most. And, yet hardly anyone talks about this.
Political fighting and conspiracy theories are distracting us. Marketing and the media are dumbing and numbing us with massive amounts of inane crap. Too many of us have come to accept as normal, conditions that rational and caring people would view as absurd and cruel.
There is no quick solution to fix this. But we start by examining our military-driven culture, questioning military proposals, demanding massive arms reductions and defense spending cuts, and refusing to allow the defense complex to cause harm to any more of our military members or their families.
Ret. Col. Rosanne Greco served 30 years on active duty in the United States Air Force. Greco worked for General Colin Powell on the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Pentagon, and with UN officials in New York on peacekeeping and humanitarian affairs. Since retiring to Vermont, she became an outspoken opponent of the basing of the F-35 in Burlington.